Tag Archives: Common Core

Rep. Ronald Nate (R-Rexburg) has introduced a bill that would allow districts to dump Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and replace them with…well that part isn’t quite clear.

The bill doesn’t change the fact that Idaho has adopted CCSS as the state’s content standards. Instead, in a curious workaround, the bill’s text states that if Idaho embraces CCSS, then districts have the prerogative to express their displeasure of that decision by dropping CCSS and replacing it with standards of the local district’s choosing.Continue reading →

Sen. Mike Crap will be holding Town Hall style meetings across Idaho this week. That makes this week an excellent opportunity to let Sen. Crapo know that Idahoans continue to be opposed to the outrageous monstrosity that the Standardized testing mandate has caused under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as well as an opportunity to stop this testing insanity by encouraging him to vote no on the upcoming NCLB renewal known as the Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177).

See, as currently written, the Every Child Achieves Act keeps in place the single largest flaw of NCLB: Using a single annual standardized test score in determining which states are “succeeding” and which are “failing.”

US Secreatary of Education Arne Duncan

Such policy has a multitude of negative implications witnessed through NCLB’s abject failure including the current policy of a connecting state compliance of annual testing to the federal money spigot administered by the US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.

This relationship results in a significant ability for DC to control schools through the use of awarding funds only if schools are in compliance with certain benchmarks, of which the sacred cow of annual standardized testing is the cornerstone. Through this financial mechanism, Idaho and its districts are essentially tied to follow federal directives including the implementation of Common Core State Standards and implement the annual testing mechanism to assess these standards through the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

While assessment, in itself, can certainly have positive implications, in this case the consequences of these tests have been disastrous. No Child Left Behind requires that all students demonstrate 100% proficiency in reading and math; an outcome (while well intended) was doomed to fail from the start.

The consequence of not having 100% proficiency means that states must submit to a waiver–a waiver whose conditions are set by the Secretary of Education (Arne Duncan)– not the US legislature. The current conditions of that waiver requires states to submit to a federal set of standards, submit to an annual examination assessing student proficiency of those standards, as well as other conditions.

This results in Idaho, and its independent districts, giving up local control; control never meant to be in the hands of the federal government, let alone a single appointed Secretary under the Executive.

For Pearson and other standardized test makers such a policy has been a windfall: As long as states have to test annually, and as long as it is a forgone conclusion that the benchmark will never be met, corporate profit shares will only continue to increase in valuation.

According to Forbes, annual testing in k-12 has become a 2.5 billion dollar industry, of which Pearson is the foremost leader according to the most recent data available. Keep in mind that Pearson in particular has a stellar track record in Idaho for designing both the State’s longitudinal data management system (ISEE) and Instructional Data management system (SchoolNet) at a combined 73 million dollars which were so fraught with dysfunction that literal boatloads of money and years of mismanagement later, Pearson left Idaho with a pipsqueak announcement that it had done all for the systems that it could (translation: we screwed up) and that they would no longer be working on the system (translation: we’re taking your money and getting out of this state).

Yet, for schools, the consequences of using the standardized test scores as the single indicator have been disastrous. This is particularly for schools working with minority and at risk populations such as low income, English language learners, migrant families, and special education students. These students have a variety of factors completely outside the control of the school and teachers that make them especially prone to not necessarily having stellar test scores, but a failing test score carries the same result, regardless of the population of students.

Unfortunately, the re-authorization of NCLB through the Every Child Achieves Act leaves the lunacy of heavy handed standardized test score consequences in place. Let’s make sure our federal representative, Sen. Mike Crapo, knows that this is a raw deal for not only Idahoans, but all of America’s students.

That is excellent news because it reveals that Sen. Crapo understands the value of state and local control when it comes the education of students in Idaho. Let’s make sure he knows he has our support in voting no on the Every Child Achieves Act (S 1177) until the annual testing provision is eliminated.

As I wrote back in January when Crapo announced the bill to end coercing states into adopting CCSS and annual testing:

Since No Child left Behind was enacted, we have witnessed the results of utilizing standardized tests as both carrot and stick.

A carrot through Secretary Duncan’s emphasizes of giving dollars to schools willing to embrace common core and high stakes testing. The result has been a disaster. Using New York State as an example, that approach has resulted in only 30% of students being labeled as “proficient” (Idaho has not released any public data on score outcomes; this will be the first year it will be released after students test in spring).

Vice versa, the big stick approach of holding schools responsible for standardized test scores through withholding dollars and placing schools in Annual Yearly Progress (AYP Jail) has been equally flawed. Schools serving the hardest students, schools with a high percentage of special education, English-language learners, low socio-economic, and “at risk” students were the hardest hit by such a strategy.

In an outcome that surprised precisely zero individuals, those schools working with the hardest students had the lowest scores; an outcome that resulted in the feds withholding money from precisely the schools that desperately needed the most resources to help their students succeed.

6 Months later, now in June, that is still true more than ever. Below is Sen. Crapo’s traveling town hall schedule. Please attend and let him know that until the annual testing mechanism is removed, the Every Child Achieves Act is doomed to have the same failed outcome of No Child Left Behind.

Victoria Young, an incredible Idaho education advocate and author of The Crucial Voice, has some excellent talking points to ask Sen. Crapo and/or share with him during the meetings available on her website.

Please take the time to let Sen. Crapo know, in person, that we can do better for Idaho’s and all of America’s children by saying no to the annual standardized testing mechanism and start putting children over profits.

9:00 AMJerome Presents Spirit of Idaho Award to local veteran Lee Nunnally for his volunteer work to repair a memorial to those who served in Operation Desert Storm. At Jerome’s South Park, 300 E. Main

Idahoans For Local Education is hosting a lecture from Dr. Peg Luksik in Boise on 01/27. It will be held at Capital Building in downtown Boise in room WW02 from 6:30-8:30pm.

A brief Bio on Dr. Luksik from Idahoans for Local Education:

About Dr. Peg Luksik – Dr. Peg Luksik is a Pennsylvania teacher with over 35 years of experience in both special education and elementary education. She has taught at every level from pre-school to college in regular classrooms, resource centers, self-contained special education classes, and in alternative educational settings. She has trained teachers in curriculum and classroom management,written and evaluated curricula, authored several books on education issues, and hosted a nationally syndicated television program dealing with education in America. She founded a program to assist low-income single mothers complete their educations which was recognized by President Reagan and named as a National Point of Light by President George Bush. Peg served as an advisor to President Reagan’s Commission on the Family and worked for the U.S. Department of Education, where her task was to review and evaluate education reform initiatives. Most importantly, Peg and Jim, her husband of 35 years, have raised 6 wonderful children and are now proud grandparents.

The Local Leadership in Education Act, as the legislation is officially titled, boldly declares its intention as:

To prohibit the Federal Government from mandating, incentivizing, or coercing States to adopt the Common Core State Standards or any other specific academic standards, instructional content, curricula, assessments, or programs of instruction.

I was cautious as many districts either continued or implemented new four day school weeks, put bandaids on crumbling infrastructure, and particularly struggled in those minority of districts that have steadfastly opposed levies despite dwindling statewide funds.

District superintendents, school administrators, and teachers get an annual evaluation. At least 50 percent of it must be based on measurable student growth. Teachers’ and principals’ evaluations must include parent input.

Principals can decide which teachers come to their schools.

Bonuses are available for student academic growth measured by statewide standardized tests given each spring. Bonuses would go to all administrators and teachers at a school with a certain amount of improvement in scores.All teachers and administrators at a school could get a bonus if the school’s average score on the spring test is in the top 50 percent of schools statewide.

Local school boards will create systems by which teachers and administrators can get bonuses based on other performance measures such as graduation rates, advanced placement classes taken and parental involvement.

Teachers can get bonuses for working in hard to fill positions. At least every two years the State Board of Education will determine which positions should be considered ‘hard to fill’ and rank them based on need. Local boards can choose from the state board’s list which positions are hardest to fill in their districts.

If a district can’t find a qualified teacher for a hard to fill position it can use some of the bonus money to train a teacher for the position.

A district can designate up to 25 percent of its teachers to get bonuses for working extra hours in leadership roles. Those could include activities like peer mentoring, curriculum development, grant writing and earning a “Master Teacher” designation.

Don’t those recommendations sound familiar? They should because many of the proposed rules under tiered licensure use almost word-for-word language in the rules. The last bullet point, regarding a “Master Teacher” is particularly telling of the connection between Props 1 & 2 and the current Tiered Certification proposal.

“Tiered Licensure,” one of the 20 recommendations by Governor Otter’s Task Force, smells a lot like Proposition 2, the soundly defeated “Luna Laws” merit-pay system. There are other similarities. Once again, with the Task Force recommendations, educators, parents and students have been cut out of the Legislative process. Once again, Stakeholders have been silenced.

As someone who advocates in the schools, on behalf of children with special education needs, Tiered Licensure befuddles me. Any educator evaluation system that links career advancement, including pay, to test-based, student performance, simply cannot work. Since the inception of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, children with disabilities have been given the right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment, with mainstream integration being the most optimal. This means that children with cognitive challenges and other learning disabilities are often in the mainstream classroom, working at their own pace, sometimes with assistive devices. It is unlikely that most of these “special needs” kids will place very highly on an academic test that is being used to determine their teacher’s salary. I am also baffled that “ESL” populations did not (apparently) come into consideration when Tiered Licensure became a recommendation. How can these students possibly be lumped into measurement device along with the rest of the mainstream class. Another, even more nuanced, question to consider is, “What defines student achievement”? Is it subject mastery? Is it overall student growth? And if so, what defines “student growth”?

Heidi’s correct. Tiered Licensure is an attempt to rebrand Luna’s Props 1 and 2. An attempt to tie standardized tests scores from minority populations such as special education and English Language Learners is particularly inappropriate for both the students and the teachers as it might create an additional barrier that would scare away an otherwise talented instructor from working with these populations.

We already rejected the Luna Laws. Not just by a little bit. Idahoans don’t want these policies in their schools. Yet, Tiered Licensure attempts to bring back baggage that Idahoans have clearly already kicked over the ledge.

A different name, with the same luggage, does not a better legislation package create.

Tying a teachers certification, compensation, and evaluation to standardized test scores is bad for students, parents, teachers, administrators, and schools.

Particularly for minority student populations, we need to be creating incentives for teachers to work with the hardest students; this proposal does just the opposite by scaring talented instructors away from the toughest youth due to fear that their paychecks, employment, and teaching credential could be impacted.